Undergraduate Courses

Global Social Enterprise is a foundational course designed to provide students with an in-depth exposure to social entrepreneurship across all sectors. The course uses the case method to expose students to leading social entrepreneurs who have developed and implemented business models to solve social problems such as extreme poverty, disease, illiteracy, and economic and social dislocation. Academic focus is on creative, driven people and organizations from all sectors of society, who are dedicated to making a difference in the lives of others. This course is the required core class for all SEI academic programs.

The purpose of this interdisciplinary course is to consider the role that a business can play in reducing inequality, increasing social impact and generally doing good, including an examination of enlightened leadership and management practices of leading innovation-based companies. There are no prerequisites. Students from any college within the university may enroll.

This course applies toward completion of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Concentration within DMSB, as well as the Global Social Entrepreneurship Interdisciplinary Minor open to students from any college or school within the university.

Studies the investors, entrepreneurs, and enterprises comprising the global impact investing universe. Social impact investing is a rapidly emerging sector within the global investment community in which investors fund innovative enterprises dedicated to creatively solving the world’s most difficult social problems, such as extreme poverty, access to clean water, sanitation, agricultural productivity, and literacy. Historically, these initiatives were organized as nonprofits or charities and received funding from donations and grants from foundations and government business models to attract investment capital in the form of equity investments, loans, and other forms of so-called patient capital. Offers students an opportunity to develop a practical, real-world, and sustainable impact investing portfolio.

Examines three fundamental principles of social innovation—user-centered design, integrated systems thinking, and impact measurement— and applies them to corporate, nonprofit, government, and philanthropic contexts. Through case teaching, multidisciplinary project-based learning, guest speakers, and design research, exposes students to leading ideas and policy perspectives from various sectors and regions. Seeks to embolden student commitment to creative problem-solving approaches that transcend silos and sectors. A final team project is formulated and designed with local partners, including an implementation strategy with investors that addresses the toughest problems confronting human society involving water, food, energy, education, housing, and security for marginalized and vulnerable populations.

Explores impact investing, a transformative way to work with money to achieve a more inclusive and sustainable economy. Large investors are entering the world of impact investing, a rapidly emerging space where social and ecological effects of finance are championed over maximizing shareholder value. New investment vehicles such as social impact bonds and Web exchanges are changing the role of financing institutions to better serve the needs of low-income populations around the world. Applies interdisciplinary frameworks, tools, and cases, with hands-on teamwork and guest speakers, to critically examine the field. Offers students an opportunity to learn to develop and test concepts that integrate social responsibility, sustainability, and mutual accountability into current financial and economic systems while expanding social capital markets.

Advanced Studies in Social Enterprise is a seminar taught every other spring that explores difficult questions around social enterprise effectiveness and scalability. The ability to monitor and measure social impact using mixed methods is the core learning objective of this class, which is tested through the execution of a final team project. The course adopts a multidisciplinary, multi-media approach to learning, including case studies, design thinking methods, and impact measurement tools to investigate the impact of different social enterprises at home and abroad. The applied aspect of the course is a field study to the mountains and valleys of Appalachia where students work closely with a wide range of social enterprises on tackling the inextricable challenges of poverty, employment, and sustainable development (read a student’s blog post from this experience here).